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Corporate Propaganda Still On the News
mofomojo writes, "Democracy Now! reports that a new study by the Center for Media and Democracy says Americans are still being shown corporate public relations videos disguised as news reports on newscasts across the country. In April, the Center identified 77 stations using Video News Releases in their newscasts; the findings led to an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission. A followup study has found that 10 of those stations are still airing VNRs today, for a new total of 46 stations in 22 states." From the article: "Most of the VNRs have aired on stations owned by large media conglomerates such as News Corp., Tribune, and Disney. They've also been sponsored by some of the country's biggest corporations including General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, and Allstate Insurance."
Adverts disguised as stories?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
.. the first one to say DUH
I've seen a few of these fake corporate news stories, and usually it's pretty obvious that the story came from a company (particularly for regular viewers, since the local news reporters are typically not involved). As sneaky as this is though, I'd much rather watch corporate ads disguised as news than government propaganda disguised as news, something the current administration has been found to do.
Either way, it's pretty sneaky and low.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
Has anyone else noticed that at every turn corporations again and again attempt to subvert the powers of the state and twist both public opinion and the law to their own benefit. In many cases, large corporations behave like small, independant countries or baronies, accountable to no one but themselves and largely immune from reprecussion. Only the state can realistically challenge their authority, and even then only with considerable effort and expense.
The situation in many ways resembles the old medieval baronies, who quarralled and feuded amoung themselves, and methaphoricall and literally stamped on the faces of the general population. The state/king had only limited ability to exercise control and essentially each barony was a virtual state within a state. In many cases, different parts of a country could be at war with one another, or with the monarchy.
In case anyone thinks this is a bit far fetched, consider this. What if MegaCorp(TM), drove up to your house one day and towed away your car on some flimsy legal pretense? Barons and Lords did this kind of thing all the time. What can you do? It's getting to the point that the police will not even dare to investigate large corporations with their armies of lawyers. Your ability to conclude a successful suit before you grow old and die is also ever decreasing.
You get a lot of SciFi where in the furture, corporations rule everything. Is this really so far fetched? If they have more de facto power and influence than the nation states in which they reside, then what is to stop them, like the old barons before them, from simply all but forming states of their own? Maybe Richelieu's reforms will be rolled back, just in a different form.
May the Maths Be with you!
Why not link to the the real article instead of, or in addition to, the story about the article?
There isn't any real news. Don't you realize it yet. Stories are generated and fed to the media by the PR departments of the various interests. How it works is a bunch of 'journalists' sit in a room and generate feel good stories about the establishment and negative ones about whoever we happened to be currently at war with. You see it doesn't really matter if what is reported happened, all is required is the 'facts' be spun in favour of the winners. Like when Bush recently legalised the torture of prisoners, NBC reported this as Bush banning torture.
davecb5620@gmail.com
But also for other special interest groups we're supposed to like.
It's nice to see that somebody else finally noticed. Glenn Reynolds was writing about this problem back in 2002:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,42050,00.html
Recycling is supposed to be a good thing, so you'd think that media organizations would be proud when they do it. But in fact, they tend to keep it quiet.
I'm not talking about aluminum cans here, but about the tendency of media organizations to turn press releases and written-to-order opinion pieces into apparently objective accounts. This happens all the time, partly because of media laziness, and partly because of ingenuity on the part of the various advocacy groups that depend on media coverage to advance their agendas and promote their fundraising campaigns.
The first part of this formula, media laziness, was demonstrated by journalism students here at the University of Tennessee a few years ago. They produced a fake press release for a non-existent student group opposed to political correctness and sent it to various news organizations. Some ran the item; some even embellished the report of an event that never happened with additional details that weren't in the phony press release. None called the contact number (which was genuine) or did anything else to check its validity. Yet when they were exposed, their response was to call the experiment "unethical."
http://instapundit.com/archives/021755.php
News stories, to a degree seldom appreciated by the general public, are often the product of press releases generated by trade associations and interest groups. Often those releases are converted into news stories by the simple expedient of placing a reporter's byline on top. Television news stories (especially those appearing on local stations) are often supplied fully produced, with blank spots left for the local news reporter to insert commentary that makes the story appear his or her own. Opinion columns are often "placed" by businesses or interest groups to support a particular point of view -- often, they are even written by those groups and then run with the byline of distinguished individuals, or even regular commentators, who have barely read the piece, much less written it. Indeed, the Sasso "attack video" was something of this sort, for the journalists who broke the Biden/Kinnock story did not at first disclose their source.
Most readers and viewers have small appreciation of how little of what they see on television or read in newspapers and magazines is original with the reporters, editors, and producers involved. Yet in fact news organizations are highly dependent on predigested information from public relations firms, government officials, and advocacy groups, information that is often passed on to their readers and viewers with no indication that it is not original. That problem is not new, but it has gotten worse in recent years. . . .
Although a "video news release" is still more expensive to produce than a standard paper press release, they have become much more common. According to a recent poll, seventy-five percent of TV news directors reported using video news releases at least once per day.
The trite reply to this article is -DON'T watch it-. I threw out my TV in 2000; I have a Mac, w/ great DVD capability, I rent stuff that's really great --Ken Burns stuff (jazz..), The Sopranos (isn't organized crime SO MUCH MORE interesting than the disorganized variety?), HBO and Showtime specials..... Other than that, TV is a wasteland. Go re-rent Clooney's 'Goodnight and Good Luck', pay attention to this gracious man's words about television. Show your kids.... But mostly, TV's PURE drek. DREK!! Makes kids stupid, and adults, even stupider. DON'T DO IT!! Resist your corporate overlords!! cheers, skeezix-the-cat.
--I do what I can, I work in the dark.
One factor that seems to be overlooked is viewer ability to smell a rat and subsequently not be taken in. I feel more people realize the segment is a crafted fake, versus a genuine news spot, than the agencys doing the monitoring assume. I know I've seen these and have been able to tell, and if I can detect the fraud, so can others.
Want something to really worry about in terms of broadcast hyjinks? MTV is using the tried and true subliminal 'power of suggestion' in various spots in their broadcasts in Asia. I happened to be capturing TV via a DVR one evening, and when I played back my sample via the jog wheel, I was able to clearly see a text message inside a faint white rectangular box, overlaid into a short commercial for an upcoming show. It came and went quickly...'progress is now - Fridays on MTV'...not long enough to spot unless you were paying close attention at that moment, but long enough to be captured by the brain for subliminal decoding...ouch. MTVs' idea or broadcast on the behest of some agency, perhaps?
Most usians may not be familiar with it, but fascism at it's core is the joining of political and corporate powers. Both Italy and Germany in the 30s had huge corporate blocks that had a lot of political power. That may give you some pause next time you see all the 'campaign donations' that flow one way. What do you think flows the other way?
(oh and mods: please show your immaturiy to mod something down when you don't agree with it)
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Not only can the corporations bully the little guy, they can bully the Government. After all, some of these corporations are global in scale, and have economic resources that dwarf those of many countries. I think that's why Microsoft only got a slap on the wrist in their anti-monopoly case aa while back.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The media, at least mass media, are by their very definition and size required to be corporations by themselves. The difference to "normal" corporations is that the goods they sell are information.
Or opinion.
In a democracy, you cannot rule against the people. Or so you're told in school. Actually, you cannot rule against the public opinion. If that opinion is based on information and facts, and people finding their own opinions, this is actually a good thing.
That's not the reality today, though.
Public opinion is made and shaped by the media. You're told what you're supposed to hear, you're shown what you're supposed to see and more often than not, you're also told what you're supposed to think and believe because "that's the public opinion". To support it you often get to see some statistics that make the statistician in me cringe, because you can see easily how crooked they are sometimes.
And hey, if "the people" believe that, how can it be wrong? 10000 say yes, you say no, now who's more likely wrong? You? Or 10000 others?
There's a carefully crafted and delicate balance of power (and money) between government, corporations and media (corporations). You, the voter, don't matter anymore. You're being shifted around and moved, statistically dissected and examined to see what spin would make you vote this or the other way.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
-FL
You had to rescue those nations? How did you do that, go back in time? And now those nations have to pay tribute to you with support for all those other wars your country is diving in?
Pardon me, but have you been drinking the nationalistic-flavoured Kool-aid? All people that fought in WW2 are retired or dead. The politicians that got you in that war are all dead. Do you think you somehow inherited some right over 'your' former allies?
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One common myth is that corporations pour millions and millions into a candidate's campaign coffers. But they don't and can't. FEC regulations limit donations from one individual or organization to a given candidate or elected official to $2500 in a calendar year. Neither can they give $2500 each to 100 employees on the understanding that they'll give the money to that candidate individually. If they get caught with a scheme like that, or even encouraging their employees to donate to the candidate, they will be in hot water and so will the candidate.
That also goes for what the FEC calls "in-kind" donations, what is popularly called "soft" money. That is considered to be the same as giving them hard cash.
What corporations can and do do is say to candidate X, "We sure love what you stand for, and are sorry we can't give you more. But do you have colleagues who believe as you do whom we could also support?" Then candidate X gets to cherry pick his/her supporters who are also in or seeking office, and the corporation gets to spread its money broadly.
Nevertheless, the level of maximum contribution to a given candidate is low enough that we private citizens might conceivably match it. If you can go beyond that and do what the corporations do, you will get decent access to the candidate on par with what they have. I've seen it, especially on the local level. Doctors, Dentists, and lawyers, usually.
The truth is that corporations really have more influence than John Q. Public because they maintain a relationship with officials and John doesn't bother. But he could.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.